Morning Bell: Obama’s Student Loan Gift to Occupy Wall Street

In the 2008 election, Senator Barack Obama reached out to young Americans with a fresh message that appealed to their dissatisfaction with the nation’s political process. He called it hope and change, and he connected with their hearts and minds with such success that he captured 66 percent of the vote of those under 30. Now, three years later, some of those young Americans have taken to the streets not in joy and exuberance but in anger and frustration. President Obama has heard their call, and he’s now appealing once again to his political base.

Last week President Obama came bearing gifts in a speech at the University of Colorado in Denver–relief from student loan debt, delivered by way of an executive order without congressional authorization. Under the President’s plan, money lenders cannot require students to pay more than 10 percent of discretionary annual income for student loans. It also completely forgives student loans in 20 years, five years fewer than before. But here’s the fine print, a key fact that the President failed to mention in his speech: For all its pomp and circumstance, the President’s plan would save college students less than $10 per month–barely enough to buy two cups of coffee from Starbucks.

But that supposed “relief” will still cost taxpayers, who are already stretched thin. House Education Committee chairman John Kline (R-MN) criticized the President’s plan on Fox News on Monday and says it’s not something America can afford:

This administration has been bypassing Congress on issue after issue after issue — they’ve sort of famously issued hundreds of rule changes and executive orders to bypass Congress, so I think that’s a mistake…

We simply can’t keep providing money from the federal government in the form of subsidized or actual loans and Pell Grants when we don’t have the money.

Apart from the cost and the President’s continued penchant for circumventing Congress, Heritage education expert Lindsey Burke says that the expanded student loan forgiveness is bad policy. Burke writes that the plan “shifts the burden of paying for college from the student–the person directly benefiting from college–to the nearly three-quarters of Americans who did not graduate from college.” In addition, she adds, it does nothing to make college more affordable in the long run–in fact, it serves to make college more expensive.

When it comes down to it, a major reason for tuition inflation over the years is government involvement in the first place. Pell grants have increased 475 percent, while the cost of college has increased 439 percent since 1982–faster than increases in the cost of health care–after adjusting for inflation. Federal subsidies insulate colleges from being remotely worried about spending money wisely or cutting costs.

If the President were truly interested in making college more affordable, Burke recommends that he consider limiting the number of years a student is eligible for federal subsidies, tying aid to merit, and encouraging states to put more course content online.

It the short run, though, none of those measures would serve the political end of appealing to a voting block camped out across the country — and indeed mere blocks from the White House. It’s an ironic sight, in Washington, D.C., seeing the Occupy Wall Street encampment in McPherson Square. The President whom their generation helped elect has perpetuated a government contributing to the very societal ills underlying their grief–corporate bailouts, a weak economy, and poor job prospects. Unfortunately, they embrace a philosophy of anti-capitalist, big-government solutions that will that will only make matters worse. And instead of building an America in which future generations will be free to learn, grow, invent, and lead, the President is resorting to policies that curry their short-term political favor but will lead to long-term malaise.

Quick Hits:

Labor unions are endorsing a strike led by Occupy Wall Street protesters in Oakland, California. The unions include those representing public school teachers, community college instructors, city government workers and University of California-Berkeley teaching assistants.

Raise taxes to fund more education spending? Voters in Colorado are having none of it. At last report, a statewide ballot initiative to raise nearly $3 billion for education with increased state income, sales, and use taxes was trailing by 65 percent to 35 percent.

Trending

Join The Discussion

There are an awful lot of disgruntled students hanging out on Wall St. but none of them seem capable of critical thinking. That doesn't speak much for colleges and universities. I was under the impression that higher levels of education teach you that you need to examine what you are told not just drink Kool-Aid.

Well written article, but it left out a critical component of the President's unconstitutional action: If college graduates work for public service (such as Obama's tax payer funded campaign army – Americorp), then all remaining debt is forgiven. This "little" component is critical for the public to know. The "moocher" generation – alive and well – let the good times roll! Riot in the streets and you too can get a "free lunch".

That is great, Obama is acting like a dictator and bypassing our systems. I had to pay for my daughter's private scholl while paying school taxes and not I get to pay for her colleger and the college for dead beats that get useless degrees like Medeival Studies. I did not complete college for myself becasue it was too expensive but I guess I can pay for others to go.

Bless you. It is truly disgusting and wrong to have a President, who has no concern for America and the American people; only his socialist agenda. We have the power to vote him out and must do so in order to save America for our children and grand children.

When is Congress going to do something? There surely are restrictions on Executive orders or else they are El Presidente order from a Dictator. I knew all along he was good for this. He wants to be Americas first Dictator. Watch out America. He is not going to take defeat easly.

That is the question, Carol. CONGRESS is THE restriction on abuses of executive power, along with the Supreme Court. And this Congress has done NOTHING, even after the massive "victory" that Heritage and Rush told us about last November. They just forgot to tell little johnny what "victory" means. The best antidote is to FIRE CONGRESS and replace every single one of them with citizen legislators who will shred the bad bills, bad regulations and bad decisions of the last 50 plus years.

Well, well, what is Obama supposed to do? He has to compete with an inept republican Congress that harbors 100 million welfare recipients, 12 million permanent unemployment bums and 15 million illegal aliens. Yes, not only have the republicans failed to DO anything, they are not even proposing to do anything about these MAJOR problems (instead they are focused on the post office). So Obama feels he has to compete with their generosity. Too bad none of the republicans listen to Heritage.

robert you sound just like the typical libera brain dead democrat you are. if you will tak the time to check it out the damned democrats have been buying votes with the taxpayers dollars for well over fifty years. and they are hell bent for destruction to continue the practice, get your head out of your a$$ and smell the coffee, you might be surprised at how good it smells,

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU? The Presidents says he will VETO the bill! Harry Reid says
" The bill will be dead on arrival"
THERE ARE THIRTEEN BILLS THAT HAVE BEEN PASSED BY THE HOUSE THAT HAVE BEEN BLOCKED BY OBAMA AND HIS SENATE!!

Blocked? If the Senate was as tough as you think, then your republicans should have shut down the gov't. when they had the chance. Then, if there was no improvement, they should have refused to raise the debt ceiling. It's called playing hardball, and those of us that play hardball do not drink Kool-Aid. And tell Willy that I have never voted democrat in my life. But your republicans have ZERO to show for 33 years of promising to "make government smaller." I do not want to be associated with that level of incompetence.

you're right, Robert. if the senate was as tough as we thought, then the republicans wouldn't give into the weaknesses of democrats and their unconstitutional pity trips and traps. Without this pity party America(ns) would be a stronger place and people today. here's a democrat in office- "we need a program at $500,000 to teach people how to read instructions." what belittlement! "we need bicycle coordinators at $80,000." what more belittlement! People don't ask for help it's forced on them at a cost! I could go on and on but look at them. Look at all the democrat run states because they replaced all initiative for people to do for themselves with programs to depend on government at huge expenses! Without frivolous potty training programs, people teach and learn themselves and each other. It's proven before this regime of democrats came to be. Without the frivolous and costly regulations government put on the private sector to enhance government revenue greed and control, the economy and freedom would grow!

Democrats are holding this country back with plenty of their excuses and deceit to go around! You must be confused regarding the definition of incompetence but sometimes people are / who they don't want to be.

Thanks for the message. Just one more reminder to not to spend my money unless absolutely necessary… I call it my anti-stimulus plan. I'm reminded of a song by Phil Ochs in the late 60's, "Marching deeper into the swamp…." We had the same reaction to the continued increasing of the escalation of the Vietnam War.

I wonder, when will Wall Street and the Banks go on strike? Talk about choas and anarchy… We ain't seen nothing yet… Remember Boys Scout Motto, BE PREPARED.

Nice to see that the Heritage Foundation along with other government watch dog groups, other than the Tea Party, are still turning a blind eye to the radical socialist agenda of this administration. There is only one way to distract this president from destroying anymore of our country and its founding documents, that is with the calling for his impeachment. Why is everyone so afraid of Obama? Is it because he is the first black president? So we are willing to let him destroy our nation? He and his administration have violated just about every article of the Constitution and Declaration,that it is no longer funny! He has governed against the will of the American people, corruption runs without checks @ the Department of Justice and Eric Holder, yet good people sit on their hands and do nothing. I know you are going to block this,but this is real and in our hearts you know it to be true.
Think I am kidding, do your self a favor and watch the movie Dr. Zhivago, because this is where we are heading and demonstations like OWS must be stopped. These are not helpful!

You have your new college degree and are unhappy that you can't find a job, ask yourself why no one is going to hire you with a degree in "Classical Studies". Maybe it's your fault for taking the easy road in college instead of taking premed classes, or engineering, or accounting, or computer engineering. Look yourself in the mirror and say I screwed up, and it's not the bank or Wall Street, or your parents fault that you took the easy way to a degree. Welcome to the REAL world!

In trying to figure out why Obama even wants so badly to be president, I can only come up with his burning desire to have power over everyone as we know it's not because he has any respect or love for America's ideals, quite the opposite. He will promise anything & everything to court every faction's vote. I've learned, however, that there's nothing from him to trust as there's always hidden features that will ultimately harm the taxpayer. Beware, young people, it's unfortunate but during this administration, in particular, it becomes necessary to be very vigilante and not trust anything at face value. Good luck in your endeavors!

As a taxpayer I resent having to pay for schooll loans. It took us 10 years but my husband and I repaid all his school loans by ourselves. Todays youth think the wolrd owes them EVERYTHING! Crybabies!

Get rid of the teachers unions and the cost of education should come down considerably. And perhaps the universities should revamp the courses they offer…..basketweaving? really!? Most of the courses these kids take are offered in the 2 year colleges too…..that's where 80% of those attending 4 year programs should be in the 2 year community colleges!

Someday when THEY have their IRA accounts those protesting Wall St for everything wrong in this country might see a differrent light….it's not ALL that evil. Although most of those protesters will more than likely be living off the Americans that do earn a living because they expect everything handed to them….typical liberal agenda.

Obama is again "buying votes" from this same crowd that share his ideology. But what's more than apparent is that several of the so called leaders of this movement are being paid by Obama's friends and supporters in unions and other left-wing radical factions that is his base. Does anyone think that if these leaders were not being paid to keep the bunch whipped up in turmoil, it would have not fallen apart weeks ago?

College tuition went up exponentially during the Bush years and I don't recall anyone from Heritage saying it was bad policy to let institutions charge even more for the same education coming from the same faculties.

Higher Education has gone up drastically over the past 20 years, under all administrations…Why? because it is paid for, for the most part by a third party, either the gov't or private scholarships, or the taxpayers

"Under the President’s plan, money lenders cannot require students to pay more than 10 percent of discretionary annual income for student loans." Did he seriously say "discretionary annual income"!!?? What does this mean? Is Starbucks discretionary but not Dunkin' Donuts? Who decides? Whatever happened to commonly used concepts, like "adjusted gross income"?

Obama takes another chance to buy a few more desperately needed votes. No need to tell the students they will only save $10 a month, rather, tell them you are making college less expensive. It's not technically lying, technically

Lindsey Burke has it partly right. The cost shift is to the top 10% of income earners who pay 70% of the federal income tax. Obama's real gift is to the liberal professors. Their incomes, tied to tuition increases, may now rise to unheard of levels. If the student only pays 10% of their income for a max of 20 years what's to keep tuition from topping $200,000 per year? Nothing if Congress doesn't get a handle on this.

Sounds just like ex-President Bush, bypassing Congress on issue after issue after issue. Does the phrase "WMD" not found mean anything to you? Good for President Obama. Good for the Republicrats. Good for the students. Good for Occupy Wall Streeters. Something IS changing in America. Maybe not enough though and maybe we all just don't like it.

When is someone in Congress going to start impeachment proceedings against this president. If he's not guilty of "high crimes and misdemeanors" – nobody is. He continues to circumvent the Constitution, issue executive orders that are illegal and spend the taxpayers money to fund his campaign. It's time to stop the gravy train. Where are the patriots?

For years the educational system has been teaching liberalism and creating converts to the cause.
We finally elected a president whose goal is to lead the converts to the Mecca of Socialism if not to pure Communism. That he is doing this in the absence of congressional approval is permitted by failure of congress to impeach. Any white president would be impeached for such an atrocity. But it would not be politically correct to impeach our first black president. So we head merrily down the path leading away from capitalism and what America has stood for to the dungeons of socialism or communism.

It is silly to send all these people to college. First, the overwhelming jobs in the US do NOT require a college education. Second, most colleges do not provide an education, but only an edge-a-ca-tion, so that ne child is left behind: i.e. they are reduced to the lowest common denominator.

Some kids go into college because their parents do not want them at home anymore because they are obnoxious, cannot afford to pay for college for them, and the kids have no goals and are lazy, and do not want to work hard, and have no where else to go. Some even go to college just for the beer and parties. Maybe these are the OWS protestors.

Expenses for secondary education has been allowed to increase in a fiscal vacuum.
Rather than evaluate the time spent in secondary education against income and jobs available, it has been touted as a source for higher income, without any actual cost / benefit evaluation.
One of the reasons is the government provided subsidies, which make the pain of paying for college easier, and is taken advantage of by colleges, which typically match Dollar for Dollar most subsidies available for students.
The other, more damaging result is the overall dumbing down of our secondary education offering.
If we are looking into the courses taken by American kids, the real beneficial subjects are increasingly taken by foreign students.
When I sent my kids to college (all paid by myself, except for the In State Tuition advantages), I was alarmed that at UCLA, less than 11% of the subjects were in engineering, natural science or chemistry subjects. Additionally, a large percentage of the science and engineering classes were and still are filled with foreign students, an increasing portion of which are now leaving America, returning to their home land.
We are teaching the best and brightest students from nations that are becoming our competitors on the international market place the latest scientific developments, while selling our own students worthless papers.
Most classes offered then were in what I would term "Underwater Basket Weaving" subjects like communication and political science, whatever that is.
Then the kids are coming out of college, learn there is no demand for what the Universities sold them, and end up in silly protests like OWS.

Our public schools, colleges and universities have failed to adequately educate several decades of US students – a fault we will all suffer from for years to come as our standard of living becomes less attractive. What has happened is obvious: foriegn students are achieving what US students are not competent to try and what success we do achieve is often due to female students endeavors while the males concentrate on sports and athletics. Your message should wake up parents around the nation.

I have to disagree with you (respectfully of course), but I really don't think our colleges and universities have failed. Let's be honest, when kids do major in engineering, the sciences, etc, they do really well. And, to your point, look how well the foreign students who major in those subjects do. So, the problem has been with Americans taking the "easy route" with easy majors.

You can't blame the colleges for providing a service that people are paying for (free market right?). Kids and, more importantly, parents should be able to identify the good majors from the bad.

So, in short, it is not that the schools have failed, but rather the parents and students have failed to take advantage of the opportunities given to them.

By the way, it costs roughly the same (aside from some minimal lab fees) to major in engineering as it does to major in "underwater basket weaving". Therefore this result is the matter of choice.

That's true! Do you think this would come about if we had Congressional Term Limits, especially for those politicains who have been in office so long their war chest has scared off any competition and they are no longer part of the sane community. The argument that we wouldn't keep the most(?) capable or the voters would be deprive of choice (see most governorst & the president) is pure sophistry and flies in the face of reality.

I recently read that the benefit to each student is about $10 per month. Hardly a break the budget amount, maybe the cost of a bottle of cheap wine. But, a significant amount to the taxpayer when all the student loans are taken into account. This a garner the youth vote. and is selling the sleeves from your vest.

OWS bunch, nothing but oxygen thieves. The "gimme" generation protesting the dream they were unprepared for not being given to them. College education is all well and good, but they need to accept that the sheepskin does not entitle them to big buck jobs right out off the campus. Still gotta work for it. Ain't no such thing as a free lunch, kids. Somebody pays for it.

You said it, Mr. Kline : "We simply can't keep providing money from the federal government….when we don't have the money." So, DON'T! What is so hard about that?? The House controls the purse strings. What is so hard that you all can' t just say no? Get together and act – don't whine.

Well, this is the same thing as our "tax break" a few years ago, so we can all bring home a few more bucks in our paychecks (what was it for…."to buy a loaf of bread" or something?) This guy really has a "let them eat cake attitude". He has led a privileged life all of his life and been sheltered from reality. This man needs to go and spend some time living in the country of his father…….he could use a little paradigm shift…….

Obama wants to forgive student loans! Why am I reminded of the Pied Piper?
Between Obama and the Socialist/Comunist college professors the students are being led like lemmings to the sea!

Why do these " EDUCATED" Young people allow Obama to cut of contributions to their future social security payments? Stopping " PAYROLL TAXES" wil lesson such contributions by Two hundred and ten BILLION dollars by the end of this year!

Educrats are evil deceivers! Parents protect your children from gold digging educrats that promise that all dreams come true as long as you pay their high tuition. College guarantees NOTHING accept life long debt enslavement. The students should be occupying campi not wall street. Wall street produces wealth and makes dreams come true. Campi educrats lie and ensalve.

Obama, the eternal community organizer, continues to preach the never ending gospel of inner city, minority rhetoric. "What ever your problems are it's someone else's fault. Just keep on doing what your doing, vote for me and I will see that you are taken care of."

The program has worked so well in Chicago and Detroit. So, why not take it nationwide.

I'm somewhat astonished at the sheer amount of misinformation of this article and those who comment on here.

First the article: Where on Earth did you get the less than $10 in savings figure? Let's paint a very easy generic example. A borrower makes $50,000 per year. Subtracting for non discretionary income (150% of the poverty line, which is the calculation for income based repayment, which for a husband and wife is $22,065 leaving a discretionary income of $27,935. Basic math from here, 10% of 27,935 is $2,794. 15% of $27,935 is $4,190.25. Meaning there is an annual savings of $1396, or a monthly savings of $116. That's not trivial at all.

Comments:
(1) As discussed above, discretionary income is actually a set number, if you google income based repayment you could easily figure out for yourself how to determine what your discretionary income is considered by taking your adjusted gross income (i.e. the number from your 1040) and subtracting 150% of the poverty level for your family size. Anger and ignorance are not a good mix.

(2) The general view that this program is going to cost the taxpayer much of anything is misguided. Income Based Repayment is a 25 year (now 20 year) loan repayment program. The basic premise, which makes sense, is that after you graduate you will probably make a significantly smaller sum of money than down the road. Therefore, payments are pegged at your income level (now 10% of your discretionary income). However, as your income increases you will pay off more. Chances are, you will be kicked out of the Income Based Repayment System at some point in the process because your income will be too great, therefore there is never debt forgiveness after 20 years.

For those few people who will be unable to pay their full loan balances after 20 years of payments at 10% of their income, the forgiveness is a small expense (the average student loan debt is $30k)

(3) To paint a personal picture, there are a lot of people who complain about students who get meaningless degrees (i.e. art history) and cannot pay their student loan debts now. I agree this is an issue. However, IBR is a much bigger help to people like myself and many others I know. I am a recent law school graduate, I had to borrow $150k. I did not live high on the hog. I received 18k per year for my housing, car, food and all other living expenses ($1500 per month). I could not work while in school because ABA rules prohibit law students to work their first year. My second and third year, I interned in the in-house counsel departments of major corporations and I was an editor of my law review. Right now I pay $2,500 a month in student loan payments. It is more than 40% of my after-tax income. I don't have a car payment, house payment or anything else, and I won't be able to for the foreseeable future. I killed myself in law school, I graduated in the top 10% of my class, got a decent paying job and I'm still struggling to make ends meet. Many of my friends are in much worse situations and are simply unable to pay back their loans as they can't find legal work and they are just letting the loans accrue interest (at a blended rate of 7.5%, accruing more than $20k per year in just interest).

If income was capped at 10% of my discretionary income, I would only pay $8,000 per year right now. Currently I am paying $30,000. You do the math. To add insult to injury, for the $30,000 I paid in student loans just last year, I received 0 deductions because I make more than 65k per year.

I'm not a victim, and no one held a gun to my head and forced me to go to law school. But at this point, I live paycheck to paycheck and have no chance of buying a car, house or anything else to contribute to society, I am making money just to service student loan debt for the foreseeable future. I'm not asking for a hand out, but a solution going forward. A tax deduction for my student loans, an ability to refinance at current market rates rather than a blended rate of 7.5%, an income based repayment that allows me the ability to set some money aside to save for a down payment on a home.

First most of these kids are taking an easy way to a Bs or BA and have no marketable skills other than to smoke pot and beat a drum, strum a guitar. I had to go back to school after my husband died, I also was working full time and keeping my family together, I paid back my loan, it was not easy but done. My youngest son is working on his masters while working, he got his Bach. while working, he worked while going to Comm. coll. and does not owe a cent, it takes longer this way but he became a Rocket scientist and is a computer genius, programs the satalites. All these kids don't belong in coll. they could be doing manuel labor, Oh! I forgot, their parents never taught them how. One of my sons is a remodeling contractor, 2 are surveyors, 1 is an investigator for an Ins. co.1 works in grocery store, another is a house painter, we all cannot be CEO's.

Don't know much about student loans other than that they seem to pay for a lot of overpriced 'education' that will never be more useful than teaching the same course to the next batch that comes in.

The student loans and grants should have a few stipulations aimed at forcing colleges to reduce their inflated costs. First, they shouldn't be offered if a college charges more than a set limit per annum. $5,000 sounds overly generous to me.

Second, the amount loaned or granted should only be 75% of what the annual tuition is. Whatever happened to the concept of "working my way through college?"

Finally, no loans should be granted for anything other than tuition and related items like books and other items needed for the course. Guess what, kids? Here's your introduction to the real world: There's no free or subsidized shelter or food. It's pay as you go.

Why are we paying for an education that really offers little or no future to the student. Our nations has been flooded with liberal arts majors that want to change the worrld for the betterment of all. Unfortunately the world does not have enough of these type of jobs available. What we need in this economy and future plans to strengthen Americia are doctors, engineers and scientist. We have too many lawyers and social workers, who in many ways add to our current problems.
Let us look at each field of study and detremine what it's future contributations will add to our country. Once we determine this we should look to intice students to enter these areas of education. Inticement in the form of monetary help or loans based on the fields future contribution to society.

At this point in time there are only 29 comments and NOT ONE OF THEM is saying anything about the amount of money COLLEGE COACHES (especially football) are making! Talk about what college costs? This is where big chunks of it are going. I have a nephew and his wife, both college professors, and they are not paid anywhere near what the coaches and their staffs are paid. It all comes down to the same old thing, $$$$$$$
Follow the money.

This person that those of u out there want to call a president is to me a joke. He had NO experience in anything except forming people to put together acorn. That was it. and, oh yeah, getting in with people who were and are corrupt and who in his mind and did in fact get him where he wanted to go. SAD BUT you all believed hope and change. WELL you got it! Happy?
American people went stupid. The young people of this generation I really question. why? because they live to drink and partying and not commit to anyone or anything because they mostly live in dream worlds and especially those from money or not, but who been given most everything their whole lives, are in fact unable to make good judgements based on much of anything but, of course, other than reagan and maybe clinton (because he had a majority of republicians in both houses that kept him on the right path) there also have been a lot of corrupt politicians. Untill WE all voters get rid of the career politicians how can we expect the youth to be any different/? Would be nice though . This guy will SAY ANYTHING and DO ANYTHING to get revoted in and try to be popular. He just wants to be HOLLYWOOD, a star WHATEVER He has truly destroyed our country and so many people are STILL hiding their heads in the sand. HOW SAD.

I hope he and Soroass plen to pay for it out of their own pocket , I raised seven kids and could not afford to send any of them to college , why in the h–l should I have to pay for these latest brainwashed bums braiwashing ? Oh, yes , at this time I would like to thank God that he kept me from sending my kids off to be brainwashed , not a one of them are invloved in these communist protests , nor do they support them .

Every time Obama acts and/or speaks his prestidigitation (meaning misdirecting or misleading slight of hand) it so reminds of the Marxist/Communist/Socialist prescription for overloading the system that it practically reeks of and yells it, and, as always, in effect wreaks such misleading government power-growing, liberty decreasing havoc. Of course it all goes to show how misleading, or questionable at best, his denials that he is a Marxist, or Communist, or Socialist are, as it's one case after another of "What you do speaks so loudly that we cannot hear your denials"!

That of course includes Obama's misleading slight of hand when it comes to "student loans", and other things. Oh but of course Obama is angling for re-election now, so he "doubles-down" on it all for his Marxist/Communist/Socialist or Statist "Progressive" agenda and base, to get re-elected President and stay in that position in which he repeats history in that as government power grows, liberty decreases.

I am a college student and let me tell you that there is price gouging going on with going to college. I go to school online and the amount of money I have to pay is no different from if I was to attend in person. They say online college is cheaper well, I highly doubt it. Just one bill for one term (12 weeks) not a semester is over $12,000.00 with a $2,000.00 a month payment. Lets get real people I am the first to go to college in my family and might have to quit. Being in my last 6 months of school I have left toward a 4 yr degree. The cost is ridiculous and maybe people needs to concentrate more on whats really happening, and what can be done about it. Online school to cut cost sorry, I don't see it. Online school is not a solution when the cost is same or practically meets an in person education.

The super committee is making an effort to solve the most urgent economic disaster even as they know its a hopeless task. But give them a pass for trying and get rid of the failed president and his administration, and also get rid of the present congress other than those mentioned, because they have all copped-out on their basic responsibilities. Surely there are alternatives to what we have – we need to deal with the failed federal government while we still have a semblance of a nation to be saved.

Let's get the nut's away from the tree, move Wall Street to the prairie's of Texas, break away from the Northeast, where all the sap keeps running out of the trees and landing on the nut's!
Let's move the White House to Alaska, it will keep OUR spare bedroom from all the lobbyist spending the night that will save millions.
Oh yea! this could be the chance of a lifetime to test wind power, and solar power, bio!

JOBS were offered to these deadbeat,parisitic,leeches;via a table with numerous job applications,which according to the article,resulted in only 2 applications filled out seeking employment !! What a bunch of hypocrites,since lack of jobs is one of the main complaints.
WHY isn't this on every blog and website to inform Americans ???

I'd be interested in Heritage (or anyone for that matter) doing an article on For-profit colleges and there outcomes. I feel like they are partly to blame for this mess and have terrible incentive structures. Any thoughts from anyone?

The students who have outstanding loans should not have their loans forgiven. How does that help anyone? It won't get them a job that they want. They took a gamble when they decided to sign up for classes and then told to apply for a loan, and obviously they lost the bet. The OWS protestors are a fringe group of people who are having difficulty fitting into society, and do not have any desire to fit in, in order to be hired.

Just heard from a respected and reliable sourse……many of the current …OCCUPY…..protestors are suburban children, born with a healthy trust fund thus no need for a real job and thus time to enjoy being protesters, playing their drums, and using the bullhorns. Many are known.

The cost of an education bears no relationship to market supply and demand. Tuition increases at close to the same rate as federal grants do. President Obama, in his effort to hold together the coalition that elected him has now "forgiven" student loans. The debt has not vanished, it will be "redistributed" from those who cannot pay (college graduates with no jobs) to those who can (people with jobs who mostly did not graduate college). This is at least one victory for the Occupy Wall Street mob. That it was done by executive order and not voted on by Congress demonstrates the Obama administration's lack of respect for the rule of law.

Don’t have time to read the Washington Post or New York Times? Then get The Morning Bell, an early morning edition of the day’s most important political news, conservative commentary and original reporting from a team committed to following the truth no matter where it leads.

Email address

Ever feel like the only difference between the New York Times and Washington Post is the name? We do. Try the Morning Bell and get the day’s most important news and commentary from a team committed to the truth in formats that respect your time…and your intelligence.